


grade 2 right shoulder subscapularis strain

by AlexiaBlackbriar13



Series: lexi's summer sizzle fics [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Archery Injuries, Boy That Escalated Quickly, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Light Angst, Light Hurt/Comfort, Massage, Olicity Summer Sizzle, Olympic Archer Oliver Queen, PAIN because there's always pain with physiotherapy, Past Attempted Murder, Physiotherapist Felicity Smoak, Sports Therapy, There are some medical terms but you can ignore them, medical shit, past trauma, physiotherapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 07:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19352263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexiaBlackbriar13/pseuds/AlexiaBlackbriar13
Summary: Oliver Queen is an Olympic archer with a shoulder injury who hates sports therapy with a passion. Dr Felicity Smoak is his new physiotherapist.Sparks fly. Perhaps Felicity can change Oliver's mind.





	grade 2 right shoulder subscapularis strain

**Author's Note:**

> my first prompt fill for the olicity summer sizzle! the prompt was masseur AU but i kinda shifted and deviated from it a little to turn it into a sports therapy/physiotherapist AU... i mean, felicity STILL gives oliver a massage so it technically counts, right?
> 
> maybe i'll turn this into a series or its own 'verse one day, i dont know
> 
> unbeta-ed so any grammar or spelling mistakes are my own. sorry lol.
> 
> hope you enjoy!

Oliver hated sports physiotherapy.

Being an Olympic level archer meant that by contract, he had to go through a certain number of rounds of specialized sports therapy per month; that didn’t mean he had to enjoy it. He’d never suffered any serious injuries before and always took time to warm-up and warm-down to prevent such damage from occurring, mostly due to the fact that he was of the opinion that going to get a massage every fortnight to loosen up some slightly tense back muscles was a waste of his time. Steaming baths with salts, careful stretching and the copious use of ice packs and heat gel were his preferred option when dealing with any sort of twinges or aches.

This time, however, he’d done something to really fuck up his shoulder, and his team of trainers had insisted he take two months off and get physical therapy to recover. Oliver didn’t know exactly how he’d hurt himself; there didn’t appear to be any trigger for it. He’d just been drawing back his bow as usual during a session and felt a sharp, stabbing pain.

When he’d gone to the hospital to be whisked through a series of X-rays, MRIs and god knows how many other tests, the doctor had told him that it looked to be a repetitive stress injury. Something that, due to Oliver’s archery, would have been difficult to prevent. He’d been placed on anti-inflammatory drugs as well as some strong painkillers, and had his shoulder taped up.

That was a week ago. Now, he was sitting in the waiting room of the clinic to be tortured for the next hour. Sighing, Oliver opened up the slightly creased documents he’d been told to bring with him, detailing the particulars of his injury. He had something called a Grade 2 right shoulder subscapularis strain. Google told him that it was a form of a rotator cuff muscle tear that could stop him from participating in sports for the rest of his life, if he didn’t get it treated properly.

Usually, Oliver’s best friend Tommy gave him physiotherapy. He’d been halfway through a six-year university doctorate program when Oliver had been drafted by the US Olympic archery team and immediately offered to take him on as a client, once Oliver had expressed how stupid, tedious and annoying he found sports therapy. Tommy tried to inject a little bit of fun into the sessions and kept Oliver entertained while tormenting his body, so the archer always felt reasonably happy coming away from the treatment, even if he thought he’d gained nothing from it.

Tommy was up in Alaska with the Olympic hockey team at the moment, though, on site if any of the players needed instant therapy between training sessions. He’d called Oliver last night to comfort him that he would be well looked after by the other staff members at the clinic while he was gone for the next month, and would check in to see how things were going every week. He’d placed Oliver with a sports therapist who was relatively new to the practice, having only worked there for a year - a young woman called Dr Smoak who was essentially overqualified for the job, having trained to be a surgeon. She’d switched to become a physiotherapist and masseuse about six months into her residency at Starling City General, for some unknown reason, which wasn’t very reassuring to Oliver. Tommy had insisted, however, that she was the best of the best, and that her medical background would help her get Oliver’s shoulder sorted out as fast as possible. Oliver was going to be having twice-weekly sessions with her until his best friend finished up with the hockey team and traveled back.

“Oliver Queen?”

Oliver glanced up from where he’d lost himself in thought staring down at his doctor’s notes. A beautiful blonde woman with glasses and her hair tied back in a high ponytail was standing in the doorway, a clipboard in hand. She was wearing simple black leggings, sneakers and the blue clinic uniform polo shirt, but the sleeves were partially rolled up, exposing the full lengths of her bare arms. The archer quickly looked away before he caught himself staring, swallowing around the lump that had formed in his throat, because he _refused_ to develop a crush on the girl who was going to be his physical therapist for the next four weeks.

“Seeing as you’re the only one here in the waiting room, I’m assuming that’s you,” Dr Smoak joked, her lips ticking up into a friendly smile. “Hi, Mr Queen, I’m Dr Smoak.”

“Oliver, please,” he corrected, standing to shake her hand with his left one, since he could barely move the right side of his body without being in excruciating pain. “It’s a pleasure to meet you -”

“- but the only reason you’re here is because you’ve been forced into it and are in too much agony to do anything else?” Dr Smoak quirked an eyebrow. Oliver was taken back for a second, but then realized she was teasing him. “Don’t worry, Oliver. Tommy’s explained your situation to me and I promise, we’ll get that shoulder of yours fixed quickly. I won’t drag out your abuse here. I know a lot of people hate physiotherapy because of how much it hurts; trust me, I know how much it sucks, I had to suffer through a year of it after… well, that doesn’t matter. And if we’re going to be on a first name basis, you can call me Felicity.” She shook his hand, but gently, as if she was aware that even the most minuscule of movements up near the top of his torso could jostle his injury. She motioned for the door and began leading him down the corridor towards the sports therapy rooms. “It is _actually_ a pleasure for me to meet you. The famous Oliver Queen, Olympic archer, who my co-worker never shuts up about.”

“Oh, well, Tommy and I have been best friends since we’ve been seven years old. I probably talk about him a lot to my co-workers too.”

“I was actually referring to Carrie,” Felicity grinned. “She’s another therapist here, although she deals more in aromatherapy and pilates. She has a thing for tall, sporty, bearded guys. You tick all three of those boxes for her.” Oliver’s back prickled and he hastily peeked behind him, convinced somebody - perhaps this Carrie woman - was watching him. As if sensing his anxiety, Felicity patted him carefully on his left shoulder. “Tommy and I are the only ones who normally work on Fridays, and since he’s not here, we’ve got the whole clinic to ourselves today. Which is great, actually, because I think we’ll have to use the ultrasound and hydrotherapy rooms.”

Oliver knew from what Tommy had told him that everybody shared the rooms at the practice, but the office that Felicity led him into was personally decorated, with light blue walls instead of the usual mint green and framed, mounted photos of Felicity and a couple of Olympic swimmers who the archer had done some endurance training with before. Her desk was shoved away into the corner, her laptop closed on top of it; there were some more framed pictures (one of Felicity and Tommy grinning), a fluffy white pencil case, and a vase of orange lilies, all representative of her bright and bubbly personality. The massage table was situated in the very center of the room, two chairs pushed to the side.

“Take a seat,” Felicity told him. “You’ve got the paperwork from your doctor?”

“Yep.” He passed it over and sat down, attempting to gingerly roll his right shoulder and flinching at the piercing pain that erupted. “To be honest, I’m not a very medically minded person… I don’t really understand much of what’s wrong. I Googled some stuff so I know it’s a muscle tear, but I’m not really sure how bad it is.”

“You’ve got a subscapularis tear,” Felicity nodded, flicking through the documents and rapidly typing up some notes on her laptop. “According to your doctor, you got off lucky. If the strain had been even a millimeter larger, you would have had to have surgery.” Finishing up her writing, she went to wash her hands in a small sink near the entrance door. “Can you take your shirt off, please? I’d like to get a look at what I’m dealing with.”

Oliver hesitated. While he wasn’t ashamed of his body at all - he had an eight pack which he was quite pleased with - he had scars from archery accidents when he was younger that alarmed a lot of people when seeing him shirtless. “Just warning you now, I have some scars,” he said in a small voice, kicking his shoes and shucking his t-shirt off.

Casting him a kind look, Felicity told him equally as quietly, “I don’t mind, Oliver.”

He nodded, taking a deep breath. Hopping up onto the end of the massage table, he swung his bare feet back and forth, adjusting his right arm so that Felicity could easily take hold of it and maneuver it around. Her touch was incredibly soft as she prodded his shoulder, examining it thoroughly.

“You’ve got a lot of swelling here,” she told him. She was so close that he could feel her hot breath dancing over her skin, creating goosebumps. The room wasn’t cold at all, but the archer still shivered. “You’re on anti-inflams?”

“Naproxen,” Oliver answered, his voice much rougher and deeper than he would have liked. He cleared his throat, trying not to let Felicity see how affected he was by her proximity to him. “I’ve been alternate icing and heating it as they advised. The doctor gave me codeine for the pain but I don’t react well to it, so I only take Tylenol when I really it.”

Felicity inclined her head in acknowledgment and urged him to settle down into a supine position on the table. Squirting some massage oil into her palms, she started to stroke her hands over his right shoulder. “The area is still very tender, so I’m not going to work you too hard today.”

“Hallelujah,” he quipped.

She chuckled. “So what I’m going to do for you today in our hour together is massage your shoulder and upper back for twenty minutes, give you ten minutes of ultrasound, another ten minutes of massage and then depending on how you feel after that, we’ll get you in the hydrotherapy pool doing some exercises. Sound good?”

“Great.”

“Okay, then. Before we start - I have to ask, would you prefer me to massage you silently, or have a conversation? Some of my clients get irritated if I chat to them… say that they pay me to give them physiotherapy, not talk their ears off… so I just want to get things clear now.”

Oliver felt insulted on Felicity’s behalf that her clients would be so rude to her. “I’d love to talk to you,” he told her. “Will make things less boring, for sure. Lying on this table in silence for half an hour sounds like hell.”

She brightened considerably. “It can get a little dull, yeah. I won’t be offended at all if you start drifting off to sleep or end up in too much pain to speak, by the way. I just thought it would be nice if we could get to know one another, since this is our first session and we’re going to be seeing each other often throughout this next month.” She began kneading her palms into his shoulder slowly, being delicate enough that Oliver didn’t cringe from the pain, but firm enough that he felt a slight burning from the injured muscle being stimulated. “So come on, then, you have to tell me your story. How did the mysterious Oliver Queen, son of the business billionaires who run a Fortune-500 company, end up becoming an Olympic archer?”

“I’m not ‘mysterious’,” Oliver huffed lightly.

“You definitely are,” Felicity countered. “You make a point out of staying away from the press and keeping out of the media. You’ve only given one interview since the last Olympics and that was for the Arrows Against Alzheimers charity benefit - and your publicist John Diggle did most of the talking. I wanna know what drove you into this profession.”

“Alright,” he gave in.

Oliver started off by informing her of how he started archery as a hobby when he turned twelve, but ended up being so amazing at it that he joined the school team and the local club. It was in high school that he started entering regional and state competitions, and win after win resulted in him heading up to the national circuits. His parents, Moira and Robert Queen, did not want him pursuing any line of sport as a career, however, and forced him into completing an MBA at Harvard. He’d continued participating in the national archery competitions while studying there, and at an international meet-up, was approached for Olympic consideration at the end of his last year.

“Yeah, and after that, one thing led to another, I went to London in 2012 and won silver for the USA.”

Felicity was impressed. “Wow,” she murmured, not pausing at all in her massage. Her hands were scorching hot against his skin as they glided over his arm and the front of his chest, the oil slicking the way, and Oliver desperately tried to ignore the heat blossoming in his lower abdomen. It was entirely unprofessional for him to be having this type of reaction. “And your parents? How’d they react?”

“They still don’t like it,” Oliver sighed. “I barely see them nowadays. The last time I visited them was last Christmas; my dad yelled at me about how I was throwing my college education away. He’s mad that I broke free from his attempts to groom me to be the next CEO of QC, I think. My mom is sort of indifferent. My sister, Thea, is supportive, but she’s too caught up with school at the moment to pay much attention to me.”

Emitting a sad noise, Felicity asked, “You won an Olympic medal and your parents aren’t proud of you?”

“It wasn’t gold,” Oliver replied simply. Maybe if he’d placed top in the whole world at men’s archery, his parents might come to accept that he was making a living for himself as a professional athlete.

“Adrian Chase won gold in 2012 for archery, didn’t he?” Felicity questioned.

Oliver scowled. Adrian Chase was a Canadian asshole who acted as if he was god’s gift to humanity and disrespected basically everybody around him. He’d behaved so appallingly in the Olympic Village in London that he’d been kicked out, for harassing numerous female athletes and wrecking several countries in Europes’ accommodation. Oliver hated him vehemently. Most people did. Canada only let him remain on their team because he’d consistently brought in medals for them.

Felicity leaned in, her lips brushing the edge of the archer’s ear. Oliver’s breath hitched and he bit his lip as she whispered to him, “You know, one of my clients is Evelyn Sharp, from the Canadian women’s archery team… she always gets the best gossip. And last week she told me that Adrian Chase is currently under investigation for doping.”

His eyes widened. “Adrian Chase was caught using prohibited performance-enhancing drugs?”

“He’s been using them on and off for years, apparently,” Felicity snickered. “So if the investigation comes through and they find solid evidence to convict him… it might be that you won that gold after all, Oliver.”

He perked up. “You’ve just made my day, Felicity.” She laughed, before getting him to roll over onto his front. Her hands felt even hotter on his back. She arranged him so he could prop his chin up on his folded left arm, while she moved around his right to place his shoulder into different positions. Oliver was in pain, but it was pleasant, like his muscles had been stretched out after cramping. “You give therapy to a lot of professional athletes here, then?”

“Oh, no, not me,” Felicity responded. “Tommy’s usually the one who deals with the sports superstars. And usually it’s the problem kids as well.”

Oliver raised his eyebrows, confused. “Problem kids?”

“You know that all the Olympic teams have their own personal physiotherapists. Tommy - and this clinic - has gained a reputation for managing to get the athletes who despise treatment back onto their feet before they can explode from frustration. It’s why he and the rest of us who work here treat athletes privately. You can laugh, Oliver, but you technically count as a problem kid. Tommy told me all about the physiotherapist you made cry.”

“She asked me what my pain was on a scale of one to ten, _fifteen times_ , Felicity,” Oliver groaned, remembering the sheer frustration he’d felt during his one and only session with that woman. He couldn’t even recall her name, which he thought was probably for the best. She’d also told him he had a groin injury that he didn’t actually have and attempted to use that as an excuse to stick her hand down his pants, but he wasn’t about to tell Felicity that. He’d shouted at her to back the hell off and sprinted out of the office twenty minutes into his treatment; he’d never seen her again. “Fifteen times!”

Felicity flicked the back of his neck in admonishment, eliciting a tiny ‘ow’ from the archer, who turned his head to pout at her and then stick out his tongue. “You’re not going to make me cry, are you?”

“Only if you ask me the ridiculous scale thing,” he laughed. There was a comfortable beat of silence between them, and then Oliver asked curiously, “What’s your story, then? I’ve told you mine… now you tell me yours. How come you’re a sports therapist?”

“What do you mean?”

“Tommy said that you used to be a surgeon,” Oliver said. “But now you’re a masseuse. Or physiotherapist, or whatever.”

“A masseuse gives massage therapy, which counts as alternative medicine. A physiotherapist gives specific medical treatment based on anatomy. They’re both similar professions, but different at the same time,” Felicity explained. Oliver hummed in acceptance, and waited for her to respond to his actual question. It took a moment, and Felicity sounded morose and serious when she spoke. “It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got another forty minutes.”

More silence. Eventually, Felicity muttered, “Okay. Yeah, I’ll tell you. C’mon, let’s move to the ultrasound room and get you going on that before I start.”

It took an enormous amount of effort for Oliver to sit up and stand from the massage table; his entire body felt like jelly and although most of the stabbing pain in his shoulder was gone, it felt sore instead, as if a deep ache was nestling into his muscles there. He swayed as soon as he put weight on his feet, his head spinning. Felicity yelped when he started falling onto his knees and caught him around his waist, blushing when one of her hands splayed out over his abs. Telling him to take it easy, she gave him a water bottle from under her desk and they waited until hydrating helped clear his head before moving off. The ultrasound room was only two doors down to the left and since they were alone in the clinic, Oliver didn’t see any point in putting his shoes or shirt back on.

“How do you feel?” Felicity asked, once she got him seated in a cushioned chair. She started fiddling with the buttons and dials on the ultrasound machine to get it onto the correct settling for a ten-minute session.

It took a few seconds of hard thought for Oliver to come up with the correct word. “Loose.”

“That’s better than tense or tight, right?” she smirked. “Pain?”

At least she didn’t ask for it on a scale. “Manageable.”

She applied the ultrasound wand to his shoulder and he bit back a whine of protest when the buzzing vibrations caused his muscles to tingle strangely. It was as Felicity was moving it around, making sure she covered the entire surface area of his upper right torso, that she began to talk, her voice ever so slightly tremorous and soft, as if she were afraid and wary to tell him.

“You’re right to wonder why I switched from being a surgeon to being a physiotherapist. It doesn’t seem like the wisest career choice. All of my family and friends think it was the dumbest decision I’ve ever made. But there was a reason behind it. Three years ago, when I was six months into my residency at Starling General, we had a couple come into the ER. Young, recently engaged - walking home from a date night when they were struck by a drunk driver swerving up onto the pavement. The man was mostly okay; it was a miracle, really, because he came away from it with only bruising. The woman was in critical condition. She had pretty severe internal bleeding, ruptured spleen, a pneumothorax... she was rushed into surgery, and I was assisting. We thought we had it handled, but then we realized she was bleeding out faster than we could patch things, her blood pressure was dropping detrimentally, and…”

Felicity trailed off. She didn’t need to finish her sentence, though. Oliver was able to figure it out on his own.

“I was the one who had to tell her fiance,” she mumbled, barely audible over the ultrasound machine’s faint whirring. “He didn’t react well. He was so angry… he blamed me. He attacked me in the ER. The police had to be called and he got arrested. I felt so guilty. I knew that logically, it wasn’t my fault and there was nothing I could have done, but hearing him screaming at me like that...” She stopped speaking once again.

“And that’s why you decided to stop being a surgeon?” he prompted gently.

“No, actually,” she replied. “They gave me two weeks off and I had to pass a psych exam before they let me back into the surgery room. I passed and started helping in minor scheduled ops. But then about a month after it happened, I was walking home from the hospital when the fiance deliberately drove up and deliberately hit me with his car.”

Oliver blinked at her and his jaw dropped, horrified. “ _Fuck_ , Felicity.”

“Yeah. Turned out he’d been stalking me since the woman died and planned out my murder to make it look like a hit-and-run. He wanted me to die with the same injuries his fiancee did. He failed, though. I ended up surviving, although I was paralyzed for a short while. I was actually really lucky. Another doctor at the hospital, Dr Curtis Holt, had recently developed a spinal implant to help with neural transmission, and it had just been approved by the FDA at the time. I was one of the first people to receive it. It still took months for my spine to heal - and I had to get over a year’s worth of physical therapy after. That’s how I met Tommy. He was my primary physiotherapist. He basically taught me how to walk all over again.” She shrugged. “After all of that, though, I couldn’t return to performing surgery. Tommy helped me get onto a one-year post-med physiotherapy course and offered me a placement here, and once I graduated, hired me on the spot. I owe him a lot.”

Oliver was speechless. Felicity’s story was overwhelming, but absolutely incredible. He was almost moved to tears. “You’re remarkable,” he breathed. “And so, so strong.”

“You think so?” she shot him a hesitant look. “Nobody else thought so. Everybody was insisting that I should put it all behind me, that I should be _stronger_ than my injury and keep following my career path as a surgeon as a _fuck you_ to the guy who attacked me.” She switched the ultrasound machine off. “Thank you for listening, anyway. I really appreciate it. Not many of my clients would be happy for me to dump all my trauma on them.” Taking a step back, Felicity abruptly dropped back into work mode, questioning, “Any change in how it feels?”

Narrowing his eyes, Oliver very cautiously lifted his right shoulder an inch, rotating it a tiny bit. To his disbelief and delight, it twinged but didn’t hurt as much as it did before. “Actually better.”

“Well, I don’t think you need an extra massage,” she said, once again kneading her knuckles shallowly into his muscles. “We can probably go straight to hydrotherapy. All you’ll have to do for that, is sit in a chair up to your neck in the pool and let me work your shoulder and arm. The room’s another two doors down to the left. I need to go change and grab you some of the spare swim trunks we keep in storage.”

Felicity escaped from the room swiftly, leaving Oliver behind. Maybe she felt awkward after baring her soul to him. Oliver was moved that she already trusted him enough to tell him something so personal. He didn’t know whether or not he was imagining the spark igniting between them, but he hoped that it was real. He really liked Felicity.

He made his way further down the corridor into the hydrotherapy room, which was basically a small indoor swimming pool, with a bathroom off to the side for getting changed, with a pile of fresh towels inside. The pool itself was probably sixteen square feet in size, with a reasonably shallow depth of about four feet. Kneeling carefully, Oliver tested the water temperature. It was warm; if he had to make an estimation, he thought it perhaps matched his body temperature.

When the physiotherapist came in, she held out a pair of plain navy blue swim trunks to him. Felicity herself had changed into a black one-piece swimming costume, but kept her blue clinic polo on top. Once he had switched into the swim trunks, which were slightly tight on him, Felicity helped him down the steps into the pool, where she’d arranged a chair perfect for his height, so he sank into the water up to the bottom of his chin.

“So considering we’re getting to know the more personal details of each other’s lives…” Felicity said nonchalantly. “You got a girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

She was fishing for information about his dating life? That seemed like solid evidence to Oliver that the glimmer of attraction between them existed. “Not currently dating anybody. I haven’t been a relationship since I joined the Olympic team. Not that I haven’t been looking… I have. Just haven’t found the right girl.”

“Really? I would have thought you’d have a rather large hoard to choose from. Girls must swoon over you, left, right and center,” Felicity laughed. She grasped his arm securely and gently started moving it around to test his shoulder’s strength and motion. It felt weird not to have any weight on it due to the water. “You’re a handsome young athlete in the prime of his sports career and life.”

Oliver sighed. That was partly the problem. “I’d like to be with somebody who wants to date me for _me_ , not for my medal. Or for my family’s fortune. That was Laurel. My last girlfriend. She dated me right up until the day I received my Olympic contract, but dumped me as soon as I signed on the dotted line. She was just interested in me for the Queen money and fame. When my parents cut me off, she ran like a bat out of hell.”

“Your parents cut you off?” Felicity looked at him sadly. “They really don’t support your athletic career, do they?”

“No. I hope one day they will, but that might be too much to hope for. Cocking his head at her, he asked, “What about you? Anything cooking in the romance department?”

“Me? Oh, no, I’m unattached. There was this guy Cooper back in med school who was studying pharm, but he was a dick. The only good thing that resulted from him was Sammy.”

He blinked, bemused. Was Felicity trying to imply that she had a child? “Sammy...?” 

“Short for Samwise. You know, like from _Lord of the Rings_. He’s my dog. Cooper and I adopted him my second year in med school. He got the books and the college apartment, and I got the dog in our break-up. He’s a mongrel, but we know he’s got some corgi and golden retriever in him. Do you like dogs?”

“Yeah. My family could never have one growing up though. My mom hates most animals and my dad’s allergic. I would get a pet now, but I’m too busy with all my archery events to look after one properly.” Felicity rotated his shoulder but put more pressure on the joint this time; Oliver struggled to contain his agonized whimper as pain lanced all the way down his right side and arm. “ _Shit_ , Felicity.”

“Sorry,” she whispered, wincing.

“That _hurt_.”

“You’re having sports therapy, what did you expect to happen?” she snickered. “Are you pouting?”

“No,” he sulked.

Felicity laughed again. “Sure. Just remember: no pain, no gain, Oliver.”

After that, Felicity taught him some exercises that she wanted him to run through every evening before bed, getting him to show her he knew how to do them before she allowed him out of the pool. She went to fetch his shirt and shoes from her office for him and then left the archer to change back into his clothes while she wrote up notes on their session. Felicity was back in her leggings and a white t-shirt, sitting at her desk and typing on her laptop, by the time Oliver was finished. His own shirt dangled from his hand and he sent her a rather helpless look; he wasn’t able to get it back over his head with his shoulder the way it was. Realizing his conundrum, Felicity sympathetically aided him it pulling it on.

“You’ve already booked your next session in advance,” she told him with a bright smile. “I’ll see you next Tuesday, Oliver.”

“Next Tuesday it is,” he agreed. “Thank you, Felicity. For being patient with me today. I know I can be annoying during physiotherapy sometimes.”

She raised an eyebrow, but said understandingly, “That’s only because you don’t like it. I hope you didn’t hate today, though.”

“No. I… actually kind of enjoyed it,” the archer admitted, a blush coloring his cheeks.

Felicity appeared ecstatic at that. Her excitement was adorable. “Wow! Can you say that again, but let me record it so I can send it to Tommy? He’ll never believe me otherwise.”

Oliver pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and waved it. “I’ll text him saying so myself.”

“Great! See you next week, Oliver.”

“Bye, Felicity!”

He stepped out of her office and started heading back to where reception and the waiting room were located. But as Oliver walked, he began to slow down, a thought popping into his head. He liked Felicity, and he was at least partially certain that she liked him back. Asking her out for a drink might be a good non-professional starting point. Would that be alright, though? Weren’t there laws against doctors dating or going out with their patients? Oliver wasn’t technically Felicity’s patient, though. He was her client - they had more of a business relationship than anything else. Mulling it over in his head, the archer leaned against the corridor wall, deciding to text Tommy. If Tommy, the owner of the clinic and head physiotherapist, was okay with him taking Felicity out for a drink, then surely it was fine.

Tommy responded to his message about therapy being good with a shocked face emoji and to Oliver’s question about whether it was alright for him and Felicity to get drinks together with ten thumbs-up emojis, followed by ‘ _use protection, kids!!!!_ ’.

His courage built up, Oliver retraced his steps and ducked his head around Felicity’s open door, knocking quietly. “Hey, uh, Felicity?”

She glanced up from where she was typing, looking surprised to see him back before tilting her head questioningly. “Yes, Oliver?”

“Are you doing anything later?” he asked, his forefinger rubbing against his thumb nervously.

Felicity stared at him for a beat and then closed her laptop screen. “What do you mean?” she asked, sounding genuinely bewildered.

“I mean, you know, do you - do you have plans for this afternoon. Or evening.”

“Not really,” she answered. “I have to pick up Sammy from the dog-sitter at seven, but I was just going to stay here at the clinic until then and finish updating all my client notes. Why?”

He nodded. “Do the note updates have to be done today?”

“Well, no, I only work half-days on Saturday and Sundays are my days off, so I’ll have time to update them this weekend.” Crossing her arms over her chest, Felicity quirked an eyebrow. “Once again, I will ask - why?”

His nerves getting the better of him, the archer began to ramble, “I’m only ever allowed to drink alcohol when I’m not training, and because of my injury, I’m not allowed to until I’m medically cleared, so I thought I’d go out for a drink this afternoon. I was wondering if... you’d like to come with me?”

Felicity’s face lit up with joy for a brief second, but then her expression was clouded with doubt. “Are you sure that would be okay? Doctor-patient boundaries, and all…”

“Um, I texted Tommy to ask if he thought it was okay, and he said it’s fine.”

“He did?”

Oliver chuckled sheepishly. “Not in words… he sent ten thumbs-up emojis.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him,” Felicity grinned. “If Tommy says it’s fine, then I guess we’re all good. Give me ten minutes - I’ve got to lock up the rooms and gather my stuff. I’ll meet you in the waiting room?”

“Sure! I’ll be waiting.”

“That is generally what you do in waiting rooms, Oliver,” she teased.

“Yes, but this time I will be waiting to leave the clinic with my physiotherapist, not go in.” He shot her a winning smile. “I’ll help myself to the cucumber water.”

Felicity’s laughter echoed after him as he exited the room, a spring in his step. His shoulder throbbed, but it was a satisfying pain. He finally felt as if seeing a physio was worth the effort and agony.

Maybe Oliver didn’t hate sports therapy as much anymore.

He definitely didn’t hate it if Felicity was involved.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! hope you enjoyed. please leave kudos and comment! xx
> 
> tumblr: @alexiablackbriar13  
> twitter: @lexiblackbriar


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